David Little: Stop the impersonal irritant

It's crunch time. Just two weeks until the election, and candidates are desperately trying to figure out how to win votes.

I'm going to do them a favor, everyone from city council to presidential candidates, and share with them how to lose votes — or, at least, how to lose one vote. My vote.

Call my house with one of those recorded messages anytime between now and Nov. 6 and I will not vote for you.

What makes candidates think that's an effective way to reach voters? It leaves an impression, all right, but it's the wrong impression. Those "robocalls" make me think many things about the candidate, none of them positive.

Such as: The candidate doesn't really want to talk to me or hear my opinion. Instead, the subliminal message is, "I'll talk. You listen." Is that how they'll treat the people when they're in office?

And: Is this person so pompous that he thinks I will hang on his or her every word? Doesn't he or she realize that nobody is going to listen to this entire message?

And: This clown doesn't care if I'm eating dinner, helping my son with his homework, suffering from the flu or just a person who prefers peace and quiet at home. My privacy means nothing to him or her.

Yes, I'm on the "do not call" list but when politicians passed that law, they predictably created a loophole for themselves. Thankfully, we have caller ID at home. It's expensive, but worth every dollar around election time. If you see an unrecognizable number (usually an odd area code) then you don't answer.

Last week during the presidential debate, my wife said three candidates called our house with recorded messages. It's one of the few times I was glad to be at work rather than home. I asked who the candidates were, ready to invoke my do-not-vote-for-the-robocaller edict. She said she didn't remember. She wasn't paying attention.

Who does?

I asked a hotshot political consultant I know: Don't candidates realize these robocalls are offensive to the average voter?

Well yes, he said. And they do it anyway.

His analogy was that it's like eating dinner at 7-Eleven. You know it's bad for you, but when you're desperate and are running low on pocket change, it's hard to refuse two hot dogs for a buck.

Robocalls, he said, are cheap. Most politicians these days spend their money on television and junk mail. Television, however, can sell out, and those beautiful glossy mailers cost thousands of dollars.

Robocalls, on the other hand, can cost as little as two cents apiece. At that price, you can reach 1,000 registered voters for $20.

OK, so it's cheap and easy to make the calls, but how many of those people listen on the other end? The campaign guy says about 80 percent of calls result in hang-ups — and the fourth or fifth time a person receives a robocall, it's probably more like 99 percent.

But politicians are perhaps glass-half-full people. If 80 percent of people hang up on robocalls, that means 20 percent are listening to the message.

Those candidates had better hope the folks who listen aren't like me — paying close attention so they can learn who not to vote for.

David Little is editor of the Enterprise-Record and Oroville Mercury-Register. His column appears each Sunday. He can be reached at dlittle@chicoer.com, or follow him on Twitter, @ER_DavidLittle.